


Understanding

by TheSigyn



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-28
Updated: 2012-02-28
Packaged: 2018-04-16 14:37:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4628952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSigyn/pseuds/TheSigyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amy and Rory have just lost their baby. There is nothing in the universe that can make that easier. In fact things can only get worse. River can’t stay, and Mels can’t explain. It takes time, but one day, they’ll all understand. Five chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Trying to figure out the Doctor’s timeline on Earth is a little timey-wimeyish, but from what I can understand; the Doctor went back in time to Amy as a child. Then he went forward to the Prisoner Zero incident, but that must have been in 2008. That was still two years behind “modern”, because he picked Amy up on her wedding day in 2010. This means that the last time the Doctor was known to be on Earth was during the Gallifray incident in 2009.

  
Three travelers zapped into existence in the center of a neglected lawn in Leadworth. Rory was sick, and grimaced to keep the contents of his stomach down. River tossed her head and blinked a few times to shake off the effects. Amy didn’t pretend to be strong. She crumpled onto the grass heaving and clutching her knees.   
  
“Ugh! Time travel without a capsule,” River moaned. “You two okay?” Then she noticed Amy. She went down with her and held her shoulders. “It’s okay, Amy. Keep it together.”   
  
Amy was crying again. She’d been doing that on and off ever since the Doctor left — and crying pretty steadily before that. Amy scrubbed the tears from her already pale and blotchy face. “That’s easy for you to say!” she croaked, her voice hoarse. “You know how this is going to turn out.”   
  
River closed her eyes and took in a breath. She’d known — she’d always known — that this was going to be hard. And walking out in about . . . she checked her wrist strap, which was already adjusting to local time. Walking out in about twenty minutes was going to be even harder. She could murder the Doctor for flying off and leaving her with this! But she already knew why he had to. Others would have thought him selfish or cowardly. It took a lot to understand the Doctor. By now, River knew that it was more than simple self preservation.   
  
The Doctor cared very deeply for Amy and Rory, and for this particular fiasco, he blamed himself entirely. Amy’s grief and Rory’s heartache were emotions that he would have found hard to endure even if he hadn’t had any connection to them. Empathy and psychic abilities were a terrible curse for any species, which was why the Time Lords had become so cold and disconnected from everything. The Doctor had never accepted such a response. Instead he simply endured, and only disconnected when he had to. But with Amy and Rory, it was stronger, because he cared for them and had traveled with them a long while. If he had had to endure this, he wouldn’t have been able to function. She understood. She found this almost as difficult as he would, and she wasn’t even psychic the way he was.   
  
Besides. He would have considered this a family thing.   
  
“I do know,” River said. “And you won’t believe me, but it won’t be as bad as you think.”   
  
“Give me a break,” Rory snapped. He stared at River, a thousand different thoughts running behind his eyes. “You’re my child, and you’re older than I am, and that’s apparently a normal thing for you.” He frowned. “I don’t even know how old you are.”   
  
“How I look doesn’t have anything to do with how old I am,” River said. Then she stopped, realizing she’d just made things worse. “And I know that’s hard to understand, too.”   
  
Amy lost control of her stomach and retched into the grass.   
  
“Dammit,” River muttered. “Come on, help me get her inside.”   
  
Rory went down on his knees and lifted Amy up like a new bride. It wasn’t difficult. Amy had lost a lot of weight in her confinement “Get the door,” he grunted as he lifted.   
  
River opened the back door with the key hidden under the stone frog in the garden, went in, opened the door to Amy and Rory’s bedroom, and then went through the house turning on the rest of the lights. She’d misjudged the timing, but she’d already known she would. She was hoping to get them back less than a day after they’d gone off to America. As it was, it had been over a month, and the house was musty and unlived-in. River went to the bedroom to check on Amy.  
  
Amy was clutching her pillow and gulping. “Let me get you some water,” Rory said as River slipped in, and he gave River a meaningful glance before he left: Don’t leave her alone.   
  
River sat on Amy’s bed and held her hand. Amy clutched her desperately. “My baby...” she whispered.   
  
River smoothed some of the tears from her cheeks. “Just try to breathe, Amy. You’re still flooded with hormones. I know you don’t believe this, but everything will be all right.”   
  
Amy stared at her. “Why do you call me Amy?” she whispered. “Why not mum?”   
  
River’s eyes were soft and pained. “Because I’ve always had to call you Amy,” she said.   
  
“She does things to you, doesn’t she. Mrs. Whatsernose, she hurts you and—”  
  
“They would never have hurt me,” River told her gently. “They wanted me.”  
  
“There are ways and ways to hurt,” Amy said. “They wanted you for a reason. And they took you, and they turned you into a killer.” Amy choked.  
  
River opened her mouth, but she didn’t have any words to say. This was so much harder than she’d thought it would be, and she’d already known it was going to be hell. River took a deep breath. “It’s more complicated than that, and I can’t explain any of it to you.”   
  
“He’s not going to find you,” Amy said. “We already know he’s not. You’re in 1969, already at least seven, aren’t you. That was you.”   
  
River’s eyes glanced down, and then she nodded an affirmative.   
  
Amy surged up from the bed and wrapped her arms around her. “I’m so sorry!” she cried, and her tears fell afresh.   
  
River squeezed her back, and then her wrist strap beeped. One small, quiet, very significant beep. “I have to go,” she said into Amy’s ear.   
  
Amy pulled back. “What?”   
  
River pulled away, out of Amy’s grip. “I have to go. I can’t be here long.”  
  
“Why?” Rory asked from behind her. “Where are you going?”   
  
River heaved a shaky breath. “It’s not so much where I’m going, it’s that this isn’t the right time for me. I have to leave.”  
  
“No!” Amy cried again. “No! I lost you, I can’t just let you go.”  
  
“Couldn’t you stay until things calm down?” Rory asked soberly. His eyes seemed very old to River just then. The armor and cape did nothing to hurt that impression. Usually Rory seemed young and only a little careworn, but under great stress the Last Centurion rose in his mind to give him tools of experience to deal with it. River both hated and loved it when he did that. She didn’t like seeing all the pain there that reminded her how much he had changed. But she loved it when he found himself suddenly able to operate a helicopter or perform complex rapier combat or spout off obscure references to minor Papal officiates. Rory’s access to the memories of a two-thousand year old Auton never ceased to amaze River — and she was hard to amaze.   
  
“I’m afraid I can’t,” River admitted. “I know you don’t understand. But I’ll come back and visit you both when I can, and—”  
  
“That’s cold,” Amy said. “What did they do to you?”   
  
“Don’t blame everything I do on them,” River said to her. “Much of what I do I learned from the Doctor.”   
  
“And that makes it better, does it?” Rory blurted. “As if he’s got a leg to stand on between them!”   
  
“Stop it!” Amy shouted at him. “This wasn’t the Doctor’s fault!”   
  
“Like he couldn’t have left well enough alone,” Rory began. “Calling us out to bloody America to get—”  
  
“Both of you,” River interjected. “I really do have to go.”  
  
“No, don’t!” Amy breathed, her face tragic.   
  
“Please, don’t,” Rory said calmly.   
  
River could feel tears burning at her eyes, but she backed toward the door. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”   
  
“Explain,” Rory said. “Just explain first.”   
  
“I can’t,” River admitted, and her voice cracked on the word. “And that’s why I have to go. Please. Please understand.”  
  
Amy couldn’t. “No!”   
  
“Okay,” Rory said suddenly.  
  
“What?”   
  
Rory looked down at Amy. “She knows what has to happen,” he said. “Do you trust our daughter, or not?”  
  
Amy’s face went red, then white, and she nodded.  
  
“Give your mum a hug first,” Rory said to River, and River gladly went back down to her knees to wrap her arms around Amy. When she pulled away she found Rory wasn’t looking at them. He was staring into the corner, his eyes downcast, his thoughts deep in something inside him.   
  
She hugged him anyway. It wasn’t warm. She felt something tight in him, like a rubber band about to snap. He put his hands on her sides, but she knew he was going through the motions. She pulled away. His eyes were closed in pain. “I love you,” she whispered. “Both of you,” she added, glancing at Amy.   
  
“I love you, too,” Amy said automatically, but Rory stayed perfectly still. River’s hand lingered on Rory’s for a moment as she moved toward the door.   
  
“I’m sorry,” Rory said suddenly, and his hand gripped hers.   
  
River looked back. “What?”   
  
“She tricked me. I tried, I just....” Tears sparked in his eyes. “I would never have let you go. I....”   
  
“I understand,” River told him. “You don’t need to excuse yourself. They’d already shipped me light years away by the time you got there. It wasn’t that you rescued the wrong baby. That was the only baby there. And it was me — sort of. They had a psychic link through to my real mind, just like they had for Amy. If they hadn’t, the Doctor would have known instantly.”   
  
“I’m sorry,” Rory repeated. “I tried. I know you can’t possibly remember, but I did try.”  
  
“I remember,” River whispered.   
  
“What?”   
  
River looked awkward for a moment. “I remember everything,” she said. “Everything. There was a reason they wanted me. I’m not normal. I know you tried, Rory. I’ve always known. It wasn’t your fault.” She took a deep breath. Her wrist strap beeped again, a more insistent warning this time. Temporal anomaly imminent. She grabbed it, trying to muffle the sound. “I know you can’t understand why. And I’m so sorry. I have to go.”   
  
She turned to flee, but she wasn’t fast enough to miss hearing Amy whisper, one last time, more to herself than anyone, “Don’t.”   
  
River’s fists clenched as she fled back to the garden, and the tears had escaped her eyes. God DAMN it! This was not fair!  
  
The wrist strap bleeped alarmingly at her, and she punched in coordinates and hopped forward in time, away from the one place in the universe she wanted to be, right then. She understood why it had to happen this way. It just didn’t seem fair. 


	2. Chapter 2

  
Less than a minute after River dematerialized, a dark face peeped over the fence, followed by a salaciously clad body which hopped into the garden as if the six foot fence wasn’t more than eighteen inches. Mels frowned. She had just heard a strange sound. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have thought it was a molecular shift from a transmatt or a time jump. But as she scanned the garden she saw no sign of anything strange. She shrugged and let it go. She was never one to jump at shadows.  
  
Mels picked up the stone frog before she realized that all the lights were on in the house. Her attention was wandering. Bad form for a soldier, she knew, but she had it easy in Leadworth. Mels hesitated a moment, then shrugged and knocked on the door. She didn’t wait for Amy or Rory to answer before she strode in as if she owned the place. No point in telling them that she was using their place to hide from the cops. They were her best friends, but they sometimes felt that a few nights in jail might mellow her a bit. They were so naive. Still such children, really.   
  
Except... she had to admit they’d... _changed_ since their wedding. She couldn’t really put her finger on how. One day everything was normal — Amy was worrying whether or not she was ready to get married, and Rory was happy and cowardly and everything he should be. But then they’d gotten married — an event Mels had missed deliberately. It felt weird being at her own parents’ wedding, for one. For another, she had been running short on funds, and Lady Christine had had a job for her. She loved working with Christina de Souza, particularly when she let Mels drive the bus. In truth, that was how Mels had tracked her down. She tracked down every clue she had about the Doctor, and Lady Christine had had an _actual encounter._  
  
Amy and Rory were gone on their honeymoon for only a few weeks, but when they came back things were different. Rory seemed sadder — older. And Amy had been moody. Annoyingly moody. Though fortunately her roving eye had calmed down, and she no longer had any more questions about whether or not she really loved Rory. Mels actually didn’t blame her. If he hadn’t been her father as well as her best friend, Mels herself would have been looking at him, now. He really was much more dashing since the wedding. Mels wasn’t entirely sure why.   
  
The whole thing was a mystery they weren’t elaborating on, and it was making Mels a little annoyed.   
  
She traipsed through the house and poked her head into the bedroom, her hands over her eyes. “You two doing anything I don’t want to see?” she asked blithely, and peeped through her fingers.   
  
They had been. They were wearing costumes again, Rory dressed as a Centurion and Amy looked like a hospital patient. Playing doctors and nurses again, or maybe some other kinky whatever. Mels cracked a grin. It was Mels who had gotten Rory that costume, for a fancy dress party. She still kept a picture she had snapped of him and Amy from when she’d given it to him. She’d thought it ironic, based on what she’d heard about her father when she was young — things she found hard to remember clearly, but never could forget all the same. Amy was, in fact, in bed, turned away from the door, but Rory was only sitting by her side, and they weren’t going at it yet. Rory looked drawn and haggard. “You two look way jet lagged,” Mels said. “How was America?”  
  
To Mels’ surprise, Amy screamed into her pillow. Screamed as if she’d just seen a car crash.   
  
Mels was taken aback, and Rory stood quickly and took her arm, pulling her away.   
  
“What was that about?” She strained her head to catch a glimpse of Amy, sobbing under the covers.   
  
“Amy’s not feeling well,” Rory said. “I think you should go.”   
  
Mels was concerned. “What’s the matter? Anybody you need to me to go kill?”   
  
Rory’s face darkened, and for the first time in her life, Mels got the feeling he was itching to say ‘yes’. His response to that question was usually, “I wish you wouldn’t be so violent.” Instead his hand tightened on Mels’ arm, and he pulled her more quickly toward the back door.   
  
Mels stopped him in the hall. “Rory, stop. What is it?”   
  
Rory shook his head. “It’s kind of hard to explain. You shouldn’t get mixed up in this. It’s not pretty.”  
  
“What isn’t?” Mels stared at him. She’d never seen his eyes look older. “Rory, I can handle it. I can handle anything. You know me. Tell me what’s the matter. What’s wrong with Amy?”   
  
Rory’s face was almost grey, Mels realized now. This wasn’t just concern for Amy. Whatever was wrong with Amy, it was wrong with Rory too. He was just handling it differently. “What’s wrong with Amy is she’s too damned trusting,” Rory muttered. “And reckless and wonderful and I can’t be _lieve_ he let her be in danger like that! _Again!_ ”   
  
He wasn’t really talking to Mels anymore. He was just talking, as if to himself. As if to family. That tended to happen. She knew he didn’t know — couldn’t ever know, and she couldn’t tell him, because every time she tried she felt sick. Part of her conditioning, she knew — but even though he didn’t know he was her father, they acted like family. They always had, ever since she had found them. It was one of the things she’d been amazed by. He couldn’t be her father, but he was her father, and something — something instinctual, deep down inside him — knew it. “Who?” she asked.  
  
“The _Doctor!_ ” And the way Rory said it, it sounded like an epithet.   
  
Something flinched inside Mels. “I don’t understand. The Doctor’s gone,” she said. “He hasn’t been on Earth since last Christmas, when the red planet appeared in the sky.”   
  
“If only,” Rory snapped. “If only that were true, and he’d stop getting his damned poky little fingers into my life...!” He stopped and took a deep breath.   
  
Mels frowned. “You... haven’t seen him since Prisoner Zero. Have you?”   
  
Rory glanced at her, and she read the truth in his face.   
  
“You have seen him,” she gasped. “What the hell! And you didn’t tell me?   
  
“It’s complicated,” he began.   
  
“Bull thawp, it’s complicated, you went off without me!”   
  
“Mels, now’s not the time for your obsession.”   
  
“ _My_ obsession, Amy’s obsession!” Mels shouted. All her research into the Doctor, all her training, all of it started lining up in her head, and her face felt hot as a brand. “Is that where you’ve been? Are you one of his assistants or companions or whatever the hell he calls them, is that what’s been going on with you two? You’ve been off destroying worlds and having adventures in his blue box, and you left me here on piddle-dunk Earth with the goddamn kiss-o-gram agency!”   
  
“It’s not like that.”   
  
“This wasn’t the first time, was it,” Mels realized. “You went off on your honeymoon with him! Doctors and nurses. Have a bit of a freaky Doctor three way, did you?”   
  
“Shut up!” Rory snapped, glaring at her. He had even raised his hand as if he wanted to hit something — maybe even to hit her — but he forced it back down.   
  
Rory had never yelled at her before. Mels was always shouting at him. And at Amy, and at policemen and teachers and the sky and the sea and the land, but Rory was always the ocean of calm in the face of her chaos. Mels loved him for that. But that calm ocean was in a rage, now. “I can’t do this right now, Mels, I can’t! I can’t deal with your mess, I can’t — can’t—!” He lost his words. He was so distraught that his hands were trembling and his eyes were red.  
  
But this was Mels’ entire being, every secret wish, every core desire, every conditioned response, and he had had it, and Amy had had it, and they had left her... left her behind... abandoned her....  
  
As they’d abandoned her as a baby.  
  
It was a double blow, and it made her burn.   
  
“My mess,” Mels snapped. “As if it’s my fault. You _know_ what I’ve wanted, what I’ve been researching all these years, and you don’t bloody care! You two are the ones who dumped me off, never came back for me!”  
  
“It didn’t concern you.”   
  
“This was the _Doctor!_ ” Mels shouted. “My Doctor, what I’ve always wanted, and you didn't tell me!”   
  
“God dammit, Mels, you’re so selfish,” he growled. “It’s not all about you and your stupid adrenaline addiction.”   
  
“But I want—”  
  
“I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU WANT!” Rory roared into her face. “Can’t you understand, what you want doesn’t _matter_?”  
  
Mels stared at him, in shock at his harsh words. He had never spoken so to her before. Never. In twelve years. Never.   
  
“What about what _I_ want?” Rory asked. “What about wanting a normal life and a normal wife and a normal family? What about wanting something simple and easy and safe? Is that too much to ask? Everyone else gets it!” Rory pulled away and buried his face in his hands. He pulled at his face as if he might pull it off, and then squeezed his temples so hard it looked as if he was trying to crack his skull. He actually tugged at his hair in distress before he took a deep breath and faced her again. Tears glimmered in the corner of his eyes. “But that’s not my lot.” And he yanked the cape off his shoulders as if it was covered in fresh blood, dropping it with disgust upon the floor.  
  
“Who do I kill?” Mels asked again. It was always her first question when something serious came up. “Who did this? Who do I take out?”   
  
“Quit being so heartless,” Rory snapped. “Not everything in the world can be solved by killing someone. And I know what killing does to a heart, and you’ve never killed a soul, all safe and tidy here at home, so quit being facetious.”   
  
Mels didn’t say anything. There were many things it was better for Amy and Rory not to know. Some of the things she did while she was away from them were not anything they would begin to understand. Or condone.   
  
Instead she asked, “What can I do to help?”  
  
“You can’t!” Rory barked. “Don’t you understand, you can’t! It’s over, it’s done, she’s gone!”   
  
“Amy?”   
  
“No!” Rory flung himself against the hallway wall and slid down to the ground, his body too weary to hold himself up any longer. He buried his head in his hands and gave himself over to tears he could no longer hold back. Mels stood helpless, looking down at him for what felt a lifetime. She didn’t know how to help him. She’d never known how to help anyone. It had never seemed to matter before.   
  
He sobbed helplessly for a moment or two. Then finally, Mels did something she almost never did. She knelt down and made a comforting gesture. Very, very gently, she took his hand.   
  
To her surprise, he grabbed her hand in a grip strong enough to bruise. But it seemed to do the trick. His tears slowed, and he was finally able to catch his breath.  
  
For a long moment they stayed like that, linked. Mels couldn’t understand what was happening. “Rory....” She didn’t actually know what to say.   
  
“We lost a baby, okay?” he said softly. “I know it probably seems... stupid to you, but that’s what the problem is. All right?” He sniffed and looked down at his knees. “We lost our daughter.”   
  



	3. Chapter 3

  
Mels’ entire life came crashing down on her.  
  
She knew she was exceptional. She knew she wasn’t — quite — human. And she knew that was the fault of the Doctor. How she knew, she wasn’t sure she remembered. But there were things she did remember. Shocking, remarkable, inhuman things which no human should be able to remember.   
  
Dark peaceful dreamstates with the washing machine sound of a heartbeat and the hum of a familiar but nonsensical voice. The uncomfortable pressure of a world too close. Then the shock of cold and light and pain, followed by clinical hands that picked her up and ran tests on her. She hadn’t liked that, and complained — loudly — until they gave her back to the familiar voice. She sounded different out in the cold — clearer and more lyrical. Waves of ginger hair brushed into Mels’ face. Amy — her mother. Beautiful Amy, whose face in a photograph young Melody had stared at for hours, for years, trying to understand why she was so selfish she wouldn’t come and find her. Amy’s eyes had shone down on her, glittering. And sad. So sad.  
  
There was no reason why Mels should be able to remember her birth, but she could. And all that came after it. She remembered everything that Amy had said to her. It hadn’t made any sense at the time, but a phenomenal memory also gave her total recall, and she translated those words later as she’d grown. “What you are going to be, Melody, is very, very brave.”   
  
Then she remembered, distinctly, being taken from her mother and locked in a warm, quiet box. And then, without any warning, she opened her eyes outside of the box and she was being carried through what she later realized had to be some kind of space station, and she was picked up by a fierce but tender figure, who took her from the clinical hands and held her as if she were the treasure at the center of the universe.  
  
And two week old Melody saw her father for the first time in her life through the eyes of a telepsychic Flesh feed. The only way they’d have been able to fool the Doctor was by having her actual baby thoughts and emotions relayed through the Flesh doll they’d given Amy and Rory to care for, like ducks with a china egg. Rory Williams, the Last Centurion. Hundreds of years old. The dream of a strong and tender rescuer that little Melody, growing up alone in an orphanage in Florida, had cherished and wondered at and eventually grown to hate, because he hadn’t come, and hadn’t come, and hadn’t come back for her.   
  
The hatred for her parents was something she had nurtured for years. The father who wouldn’t come. The mother who’d tried to kill her. And then she’d met them, and they were so young and friendly and kind and — and loving. Melody’s hard heart had softened, unable to do anything but love them back. And eventually, she even stopped bothering to remember who they were, or what they were going to do. They were Amy and Rory and they were the only friends she’d ever, ever had. And she loved them.   
  
Her hatred for Rory was something she had abandoned after she’d met the hopeless geek who was Amy’s tagalong friend. For years she had stared in wonder at the boy as he had grown, helpless and weak-willed and clever and curious. How could he ever come to be the Last Centurion? And he’d come back from that honeymoon, and Mels had missed it — she couldn’t believe she had missed his metamorphosis!   
  
She hadn’t really looked at him properly, or given him a second thought. He was right. She’d been too wrapped up in her self. He had become the man she remembered. The hero. The legend.  
  
And as Mels watched, the Last Centurion had crumbled like a little boy and sobbed uncontrollably on the floor.   
  
“Lost?” she asked. “Why... why do you care?”  
  
Rory glared at her. “I always knew you had sociopathic tendencies, but even you should understand that.”  
  
“Well... won’t you just have another one?”   
  
He slammed his fist into the wall, leaving a substantial dent in the sheetrock. “Oww!” he grunted, shaking his fist. He looked up at her. “I knew you wouldn’t get it. How could mad Mels ever understand? People are not interchangeable! We can never just ‘have another one.’ Maybe we could have a second child, but we’ll never get her back.” He gulped. “She’s our daughter. She’s our baby, and I’ll never hold her again, or watch her learn to walk, or hear her first word, or teach her to read, or to ride a bike....” He shook his head. “All those things.... Just little things. A life with her and Amy, all of us together. It was all I wanted. After so, so—” he choked. “ _So long,_ Amy and I finally together, and we get one little... perfect... blend of us, and....” He sobbed. “It’s not fair.”   
  
There was a roaring in her ears as she stared at him, in a state of perfect despair. “I always thought you wouldn’t care,” she whispered. “I thought you’d just forgotten, or... that it wouldn’t matter.”   
  
“What are you talking about?” Rory asked, and Mels flinched. Her mind and body tweaked as it did whenever she got too near to saying too much. They’d conditioned her so perfectly....  
  
She wanted to reach out to him. She wanted to crawl up into his lap and tell him that it was all right, she was right here, and she’d never let him go. To tell him everything. But then a voice whispered deep, deep in the back of her brain as she fought against all her conditioning. The voice that always had the last world.   
  
_Silence must fall._  
  
She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t explain. She couldn’t... couldn’t.... There was a roaring in her head and her soul was bleeding. She wanted to tell him. She wanted to so badly, and she couldn’t....  
  
And something snapped.   
  



	4. Chapter 4

  
When Mels came back to herself Amy was standing before her, screaming at her to stop. Rory had grabbed her from behind, holding her arms pinned to her sides. The livingroom was in ruins. The light in the room was dim and stark. The only lightbulb Mels hadn’t smashed burned from a snapped floor lamp, dangling at a precarious angle over the back of the sofa, the shade several meters distant. Knickknacks were shattered on the floor, and the mirror over the mantle was cracked in a neat spider’s web. Mels’ bleeding knuckles told her it was done by her fist. Her arms ached — she supposed from throwing the easy chairs — and there were shards of broken glass in her elbow from the window in the display case. Mels was dripping blood onto the carpet. That was a relief. She knew how to handle the real blood, the physical pain. She couldn’t stop the bleeding in her soul.   
  
She sagged in Rory’s arms and Amy grabbed her shoulders. “Mels, stop. Please, stop this.” The words were low and earnest. She wondered how long Amy had been screaming at her.  
  
“I’m sorry, I’m...” Her breath caught and she shuddered in Rory’s arms.   
  
Amy looked concerned, her complexion as pale as milk, with stark dots of cinnamon freckles standing out distinctly on her face. She nodded in understanding. “One of your things again?”   
  
Mels wanted to start screaming, but the ache in her throat told her she’d already been doing that. “I’m sorry,” she said again.   
  
Rory and Amy both helped her to the bathroom where they set her down on the edge of the tub. Rory made sure there was no glass in her skin while Amy made sure to treat each cut with antibiotic ointment, and carefully cover it with a band-aid.   
  
Mels knew she shouldn’t let them do this. She was older than they were, for one, by a good twenty-five years — though she looked the same age as them. She shouldn’t act like a little girl, shouldn’t let them act like her parents, even though it was something she could never bring herself to stop.   
  
But moreover... Rory was right. She was selfish. They were hurting right now, and she should be taking care of them. “You shouldn’t be doing this,” Mels said. “You’re the ones who...”  
  
“Don’t — talk about it,” Rory said, his tone a little clipped. “I’d rather have something in front of me I can fix.” He pulled another glass shard out of her fingers with a tweezers. “I know how to do this.”   
  
Amy was talking the whole time, mostly about silly misadventures they’d gotten into when they were younger, and some of the other ‘things’ that Mels had had. As she took them all into the kitchen and started a pot of tea, Amy started reminiscing about the time Mels had been switched again in foster care, this time out of Leadworth. “You went a little nuts then, too, remember?” she said. Mels did remember. She’d gone into a mindless animal rage and nearly broke her social-worker’s arm. They’d left her in Leadworth. And when the minister’s son had tried to “redeem” her, she’d gone crazy then, too. He’d given up. Usually it was messy, but if people got out of the way, it wasn’t usually dangerous. She knew it happened when her desires and her conditioning conflicted and she was under a lot of stress. Someone attempting to take her away from her parents, versus the desire to remain hidden. Things like that.  
  
Amy and Rory could always bring her out of it. Her madness was something they simply accepted. Mad Mels, usually she can handle anything. Then something pushes her too far, and in the wrong direction and — snap — she’s... well. She’s gone mad. Rory got it. He was a nurse. Not everyone in the world was neuro-typical. And Amy had gone through so many psychiatrists, Mels wasn’t the only crazy person she’d ever met.   
  
Usually it was something they all laughed about, once it was settled. Amy was trying for that now. Mels wasn’t having that.   
  
“I’m sorry,” she said, once they were all seated around the kitchen table. “I can’t explain what set me off. Not really. Just... thinking of you two....” She shuddered and tried to find a way around what her conditioning would let her say. “You would have made such great parents!” she wailed. She hadn’t meant to say it at all, let alone for it to pour out of her so desperately.   
  
Rory’s eyes suddenly cleared and he looked over at Amy. “Foster care,” he said.   
  
“What?” Amy looked confused for a short moment, but in that way they’d picked up since their marriage, Mels watched as understanding bloomed between them without words. “And you lost your parents,” she said to Mels. “And now I’ve lost my — child.” Her voice caught only a little on the last word.   
  
Mels nodded vigorously. “I used to wonder... if my parents ever thought about me. If... if they ever regretted... not raising me, and....”   
  
“Well, I don’t know,” Amy said. “But if they were human beings with souls, then yes.”   
  
“They’d have to,” Rory added. “Whatever was wrong in their lives that made them give you up, poverty or addiction or mental illness, whatever it was, it wasn’t because they didn’t love you.”  
  
“Well, we don’t know that,” Amy admitted. “They might have been complete jerks.”   
  
“I don’t think they were,” Mels said softly. “I remember them a little.”   
  
“How’d you lose them?” Amy asked. It was a question she had asked before, and Mels always brushed it off, saying it didn’t matter, or she didn’t want to talk about it.  
  
Mels clenched her fists and hugged her chest.   
  
“Please,” Amy whispered. “Give me something to think about besides this... hole in my heart.”   
  
“Or the mess in our livingroom,” Rory muttered, but it was with an indulgent grin.  
  
Mels chuckled, even though her soul felt like it was rotting. She shook her head. “You know... you know how I always wanted to hear about the Doctor?” she asked Amy.   
  
Amy nodded. It had been their favorite game, playing Doctor. Amy was usually herself, or someone very like herself, and Rory could often be persuaded to play the Doctor. Mels had usually asked to play Prisoner Zero, or some other alien (and many of her alien races had been quite original. Rutans and Androgums were pretty terrifying.)  
  
“Well... you liked me because I was the only person who didn’t say he wasn’t real.”   
  
“Yes,” Amy agreed. “And you were cool.”   
  
Mels cracked a grin, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Well... I’ve always known he was real.” She was struggling, struggling, struggling with herself, and the white hot blade of the voice in the back of her head was telling her to be silent! _Silence must fall!_  
  
Turned away from what she wanted to say, she said, “I’ve looked him up. He’s there in history if you know where to find him, and... and....” She swallowed. “My parents... they met him once, and... and....”   
  
Rory put his hand on hers. “Say no more.”   
  
Mels looked up.   
  
“You don’t need to go on. I can see this is hard for you, and frankly... death follows that man like a cloak.”   
  
“Stop it!” Amy snapped.   
  
“You know it’s true,” Rory said.   
  
“It’s not his fault!”   
  
“Did I say it was?” Rory asked. “But if he doesn’t land smack in the middle of trouble already brewing, then he brings it with him.” He gestured to Mels. “Some alien incursion or historical disaster, does it make any difference? He was there, and her parents died. Am I right?”   
  
“Something like that,” Mels said. “I... can’t talk about it easily, I....”   
  
He smiled sadly at Mels. “Keep your silence. It doesn’t matter what happened.”   
  
Mels let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.   
  
“It’s not the Doctor’s fault,” Amy said again.  
  
Rory looked at her. “I’m not going to argue with you, Amy.”   
  
“You’re still jealous.”   
  
“No, I’m not,” Rory said, completely in earnest. “I’m — _really_ — not. Even with everything — and I mean _everything_ — I wouldn’t change my life with his for the world.”   
  
Amy went pale suddenly and clutched Rory’s hand. Rory pulled her close and hugged her, and his armor clanked.   
  
Mels sat looking at the two of them, bound in love and drowning with pain. “I’d like to meet him,” she said suddenly.   
  
Amy pulled away from Rory and looked at her. “What?”   
  
“I’d like to meet him. Next time you see him, introduce me, okay?”   
  
Rory and Amy exchanged looks.  
  
“I mean, I know everything about him,” Mels added, “but I don’t even know what he looks like. You still haven’t told me, is he hot?”   
  
“Now’s not the time, Mels,” Rory said, more exasperated than annoyed.   
  
“Of course it’s the time,” Mels said. “Next time you go off, I’ll come too. He must be feeling pretty left out by now, with all your kinky highjinks. Just let me get my hands on him—” she laughed maniacally — “and I’ll show him what a little box can _really_ do.”  
  
Amy blushed scarlet and Rory rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you still want to marry him.”   
  
Mels shrugged. She still hadn’t decided what she wanted to do to the Doctor. She only knew she wanted him. Forget that. She _needed_ him. She knew she’d never be complete until she got her hands on him. _Silence must fall._  
  
“Nice to see you’re back to your old self, Mels,” Rory said. “Now, can you get the broom and help me sweep up the broken glass?”   
  
“I’ll do it,” Mels said. She stood up and took both of their hands. “You two go to bed. I’ll clean up here. You’ve earned a rest.” She was flippant and buoyant again, Mad Mels, who could handle anything. Rory made some protests, but Amy took his arm. “Please,” Mels added. “It’ll feel like I’m doing something for you. You’ve... had a harder trip than I’d thought.”   
  
The two agreed and went back to their bedroom. They closed the door tightly and Mels went about bringing the livingroom back into some semblance of order. She cleaned up the breakage, replaced lightbulbs, fixed what she could and threw out what she couldn’t. When she was finished she went over to her parent’s door.   
  
Her parents.   
  
The thought of it made her head ache. Something was stirring in her. Something she’d been suppressing for longer than she cared to remember.  
  
Her opinion of the Doctor had been teetering for years. Her memory of him — misty and babyish as it was — was pleasant. Friendly. His arrival in her life was what had given her the strength to break free of the controlling suit and the oppressive Silence. In that sense, there was a part of her that almost worshiped him. But his interference into her parents world was what made them lose her in the first place.  
  
It didn’t even out.  
  
Did it?   
  
She put her hand on the door and then stopped. Mels’ hearing was more acute than she ever let on. There was a sound coming from the other side of the wood. Muffled sobs. They were still crying.   
  
No. It didn’t even out. Because they were sad. It didn’t even out, because she had lost them. It didn’t even out, because she, Melody... Melody _Pond,_ had grown up an orphan, and she wanted someone to pay for that.  
  
She knew what she had to do. The voice in the back of her head whispered at her, but for once it wasn’t fighting her. It was helping her. _Silence must fall,_ it hissed.   
  
“Yes,” Melody breathed. She still wanted him. Always wanted him. She couldn’t imagine him being taken from the universe without kissing him at least once. But _Silence. Silence must fall._ She grinned. She would take him out. And she knew just how to do it, too.   
  



	5. Chapter 5

  
  
River’s wrist strap dropped her only a few weeks away from when she’d left. She hadn’t really been careful with the time coordinates. She was fighting back tears. Where was she? It looked like the field outside of Leadworth... how ironic. It was where she’d first met the Doctor. Or where the Doctor had first met her. Or when they met when she was still Mels, anyway.   
  
“Focus, girl,” she muttered to herself, and turned back to the wrist strap. She tried to calculate the proper entry point.  
  
A rhythmic humming told her she didn’t need to. The Tardis appeared not ten feet from her on the edge of the field. The Doctor opened the door and leaned on the frame, smiling seductively.   
  
River put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “And what time do you call this?” she asked.   
  
The Doctor laughed. “Got a message,” he said, flipping open his psychic paper. “Said you were a little lost.”   
  
“I never sent that.”   
  
“Hm. Well. Send it now.”  
  
“How?”   
  
“Use the wrist strap, the Tardis will pick it up.”   
  
River typed, “Little lost,” into the strap with the date and location, aimed it into the ether, and pressed send. “Satisfied?”   
  
The Doctor reached out to her. “You always make me satisfied,” he said. His eyes were soft.   
  
River took his hand and entered the Tardis. “When are you?”   
  
“Oh, long after Lake Silencio,” he said, kissing her cheek. “You?”   
  
River looked away. The Doctor brushed the hair from her face gently, drawing the words out of her without even trying. “I just... left Amy and Rory after Demons Run.”   
  
The Doctor folded her into a hug and kissed her temple. “So you’re in an awful mood,” he said gently. “I was right. You were a little lost.”  
  
“You have no idea,” River said. They sat down and she explained that she’d had to leave them to avoid crossing her own timeline.  
  
“I’d been waiting all my life for the time when my past would cross into my present,” River said. “And when it happened, I was completely unable to accept it. I wouldn’t see what was before my eyes. I wouldn’t believe what my heart told me. That they loved me. And when I saw that pain they were in....” She shook her head. “I lost all the progress I’d made.”   
  
“What do you mean?”   
  
River looked up at him. “They never finished my conditioning,” she said. “I escaped. I escaped, and I thought I’d rid myself of it. But I couldn’t escape it, it was inside me. So I’d shifted it, because... Amy loved you. She didn’t want to see you dead. So I worked so hard, and I didn’t dream of ways to kill you anymore. I shifted the obsession they’d programmed me with from killing you to...” she looked embarrassed. “Just wanting you.” The Doctor watched her, no judgement at all in his eyes. “But when I saw them so unhappy....” She stared at him. “That was the first time in my life I’d ever really wanted to kill you.”   
  
The Doctor shook his head. “Well, that makes sense. You know, I don’t blame you. There are times I still think it’s what I de—”  
  
“I’ll break your arm if you say you deserve it! You do not deserve it,” River snapped.   
  
The Doctor chuckled. “I could deserve it,” he said earnestly. “If I didn’t have something to hold me back. Some reason not to break the rules. Someone to stop me.”  
  
“I know the feeling.”  
  
He held his hand out to her and she crept into his lap. He kissed her oh so gently, and the painful sorrow in her heart eased. They were the perfect contrast. The cold-hearted killer who didn’t want to kill. The eternally good man with so much blood on his hands. They balanced. And whenever they came together, the universe seemed to move a little more smoothly. It was love. It was family. She’d never understood it when she was young. It made sense, now.   
  
“Was it worth it?” the Doctor asked. The tiny space between them was filled with heat and time and power.   
  
“Yes,” River said without hesitation. “It just took a while to understand.” 


End file.
